Just as the haunting 1960s-era, anti-war song asked where all the flowers had gone, passengers and their congressional representatives are asking, where has all the air service gone? Passengers are now forced to drive to their destinations or the nearest hub which may not be difficult in the East but, in the west, it requires a lot of windshield time to get to a hub, and with new rules proposed, is tantamount to driving from Washington to New York to catch a flight, albeit without the I-95 traffic.
From the dawn of aviation, airlines have started, grown and abandoned markets to be replaced by what used to be called local service carriers and ultimately commuter/regional airlines. It is a natural evolution as the recurrence over the years can attest. However, it has been precluded by federal regulations and structural changes in the airline industry. The wholesale abandonment of communities during deregulation was a boon to regionals and the communities they served. Regionals exploited a vast new opportunity, carving out a valuable space in the national air transportation system. Communities received increased frequency and more reliable service, even as they groused about the loss of jet service.
In this multi-part series, Regional Aviation News, and its partner, BACK Aviation Solutions, will examine what happened to community air service – the points that helped build the regional airline industry post deregulation. We will also investigate whether or not Congressional mandates and federal regulations along with the restructuring of the industry has meant the death of such service, except those served under perennially attacked Essential Air Service. We will examine whether this was the intent of deregulation and the ultimate price for living outside the American mainstream. In addition, we will look at whether Very Light Jets or the much-touted NASA/FAA Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATs), promise to fill the void left by commercial airlines.

Who Cares?
The quick answer is those in power really don't and those without power, do.

The Feds?
Certainly, the federal government does not care since it has proposed shortchanging the EAS program every year and, its’ continually changing rules, threaten to spin out more points from the program. Despite the Department of Transportation’s recent call for proposals for small community air service development, the newly proposed reauthorization legislation calls for 64 communities to be axed from the program by increasing the mileage passengers must drive to a medium or large hub. Related Story 

The Regionals?
Regionals, for the most part, do not care as they are now only providers of seats designed to strengthen the coffers and strategic positions of their mainline partners. The resulting growth has earned fabulous wealth, never dreamed of when they did serve these communities. Regional airlines have declined by 20 percent in the last four years, according to the Regional Airline Association (RAA) which, ironically, touts its importance by saying that one in five passengers rely on regionals as do over 500 communities, 72 percent of which rely solely on regionals. Yet, its large, powerbrokers, do not service, nor do they care for community air service.

Congress?
Congress cares, as do local communities who are no longer part of the national air transportation system. Congress steps in every year to restore funding to the EAS, but fails to enforce a provision in Vision 100 that provides for coverage of increased costs outside of the airline’s control such as last year’s fuel spikes.

EAS Communities?
Regional Aviation Partners (RAP), representing the small band of hardy Essential Air Service airlines, cares. However, EAS carriers have been attacked by the Department of Transportation, the General Accountability Office and the press for failing to make the service self-sufficient, supposedly because they want to milk the government for flights that should have been cancelled long ago. If that were so, it certainly begs the question why these carriers are constantly skirting the edge of extinction.
The Department of Transportation indicated that since 9/11, 17 EAS points have been lost, displacing more than 33,040 passengers, admittedly peanuts compared to the more than 150 million passengers regionals carry annually. Prior to 9/11 12 communities lost service. DOT cited subsidy exceeding the $200-per-passenger limit as the reason communities lost eligibility.
Airlines providing EAS service have been reduced by five, and Skyway, which serves Michigan EAS communities, has filed to leave the program in May. Airlines that do file to leave, incur further losses as they are forced to remain, pending the award to another airline.
In response to a recent RAP survey, 66 of the 78 (84.6 percent) EAS airports, completing the survey cited “passenger leakage” as a major problem. RAP asked EAS airport managers to quantify the problem. Of the total received:
• 29.24 percent cited lower fares at other airports
• 28.07 cited other airports offering air service via multiple carriers, providing more frequent flights to numerous cities
• 16.37 percent cited larger aircraft size providing increased comfort
• 19.88 percent cited better reliability
RAP also cited a DOT’s Inspector General report published last summer which provides alarming data related to small community air service.
• Scheduled flights at non-hub airports in July 2006 are down 26 percent from July 2000, and scheduled seats are down by 18 percent. After rebounding to within a few percentage points of 2000 levels, the airlines began to eliminate capacity in 2005, in an efforts to control costs and increase fares.
• Scheduled flights into large airports from non-hubs were down 13 percent between July 2000 and July 2006 and seats were down 23 percent.
• In July 2006, scheduled seats at non-hub airports in the Northeast and Midwest regions were lower by 36 percent and 32 percent, respectively, compared to July 2000.
• Over the same time, scheduled seats declined by 17 percent in the South and 11 percent in the West.
• The seat reductions at the non-hub airports have accelerated sharply in the last year; out of the 900,000 monthly seats lost over the last 6 years at non-hub airports, 365,000 (40 percent) of the reductions occurred in the last year, primarily resulting for Delta (DALRQ) and Northwest (NWACQ) downsizing in the wake of their by 2005 bankruptcy filings.
While deregulators would point to these statistics as the marketplace at work, others disagree, saying while the marketplace works for metropolitcan areas, deregulation has done little for community air service.
“The number of people choosing to live in rural America continues to decline as a result of the divide and quality of life options,” said RAP President Maurice Parker. “Unfortunately, as the decline continues, more and more family farms, small businesses, and other critical jobs are lost. We, as a country must decide if this is a good thing or if it is not.” Furthermore, once we decide, we may not like the result.
"We've had a decade of erosion,” said Jon Lane Smith, director of the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at East Tennessee State University, who conducted the CASC study. “If one were only to look at the access to the national air transportation system or passenger convenience, you could conclude that perhaps the loss of these markets is the way that it should be in a deregulated world. But this is about much more than convenience. The aviation system is complex, making this about jobs and local economies and the viability of some of these points to sustain their local economies. It is about what that loss will mean to the air transportation system and the country."

Airports?
Community Air Service Coalition (CASC), representing the beleaguered non-hub airports that have lost service, cares. These airports are now scrambling to replace the revenues once provided by commercial air service. The level of losses so far can be surmised by the fact that airports generating $27.2 billion in economic output and support nearly 275,000 jobs are at increasing risk of not only losing air service but of failing financially owing to the structural changes since, first deregulation, and then, 9/11. Two hundred and forty three non-hub commercial airports in the U.S. with enplanements between 10,001 and 0.05 percent of total U.S. passenger boardings, earn $7 billion annually, however, as a group, they have been unable to generate operating revenues sufficient to cover operating expenses in almost every year since 2001, according to a CASC study. Related Story
Nicole Reider, a BACK Analyst, noted nonstop routes served by turboprops have dropped by 58 percent since 1996 and departures have fallen 69 percent. The routes dropped from 1,347 to 565 between the second quarter of 1996 and the second quarter of 2006, resulting in a loss of billions of dollars in economic activity at these points. Thirty-five airports with at least five weekly flights in January 2001 had completely dropped off the scheduled route map as of January 2006. Markets under 300 statute miles have dropped by more than 20 percent, Reider said. Related Story

Pax?
Presumably passengers, now faced with long drives, care. The you-can’t-get-there-from-here problem is compounded by the increasing hassle of flying in general. They are transformed into pinballs, shot into the airspace and forced to bang off pillar and post in order to get to their destination wasting a lot of hours in the process. It is little wonder they have returned to their cars after being abandoned and abused by airlines.
Toledo Airport used to be a bustling airport served by all the major airlines. Today, it is totally empty, according to passenger Boris Sherman, who previously flew out of the airport regularly. Airline cutbacks have meant higher fares, fewer flight options or longer drives to hubs and a reversal of fortune for regional airports.
"The demand is still there," said Phillip Johnson, deputy director of Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids, MI, told an Associated Press reporter. "It's just that our folks are having to go elsewhere to fly."
Grand Rapids lost six percent of passengers, while airports in Mississippi lost 15 to 20 percent and Toledo 16 percent. Takeoffs are down, by one-third over the last two years. AP Author John Seewar indicated that many airports, such as Tupelo's, have endured numerous schedule changes in just the last year, noting such actions destroy passenger confidence. Related Story

The Impact
While those wishing for the rural life may see an easier life beyond fast-paced, urban and suburban America, those actually trying to make a living there, including highly educated professionals, are finding it increasingly necessary to work two or three jobs because of the loss of a community’s competitiveness and well-paying jobs.
Furthermore, the deterioration of airline service is being excruciatingly repeated in other vital industries, further eroding basic services. The Senate Commerce Committee has been concerned for years over the Digital Divide, the lack of available internet/telecommunication services in rural areas, which are not only losing their air service but also bus and rail service. In addition, these areas are also at risk of losing even phone service as costs to serve them, just as with airline service, exceed the revenues. The prospect, only serves to remind us of the restructuring of the regional airline industry post-deregulation, which will likely be repeated with small phone carriers. First, there was market entry, then consolidation, then buyout by the big companies and the loss of essential services for small communities.
Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) focused on this issue in last fall’s EAS hearing and the U.S. Airways (LCC)/Delta merger hearing. He said the gap/divide between the quality of air service and prices offered at larger airport vs. that offered at small airports continues to widen as do many other services.

Loss of Service Not the Only Problem
Communities are not only the first to be abandoned, those passengers that are able to cling to an air connection, often get stuck with airline practices that conspire to make their air service less reliable than it should be. This only results in further erosion of airline credibility and reliability, two factors which force service to spiral down.
Ironically, one of the hallmarks of regional airline success in the formative years after deregulation was providing frequency and reliability to communities that had often been bypassed, over-flown or ignored by mainline and local-service operators. Today, airline practices are repeating the frustration many communities thought were long gone.
They are the first to encounter delays or cancellations, according to the DOT’s Inspector General’s report. Small airports account for 87 percent (450) of airports with scheduled service, and flights to and from them account for roughly 7,400 scheduled flights per day, or roughly 25 percent of scheduled domestic service.
Flights to and from small communities suffered greater consequences from delays or cancellations, simply because passengers had few alternatives, short of driving. Both the length of delays and cancellation rates were higher for small communities. In addition, the IG found that short-haul flights were more likely to be cancelled than medium-haul or long-haul flights.
Related Story
In addition, major carrier computer programs are designed to delay regional flights first, inconveniencing the least number of passengers. They also require regionals to wait for connecting passengers. It is little wonder regionals are at the top of the DOT’s consumer problems, often undeservedly so. Related Story 

Despite the several factions interested in this growing problem, it is unsurprising there is no hue and cry. First, airlines, regulators and legislators have been more concerned about the survival of major carriers since 9/11 than about community air service. Second, there are few voices advocating for community air service and they are very small by comparison to those from mainline, low-cost and large regional airlines. Although powerful interests on the Hill are concerned, that has not stopped DOT from unabashedly trying to kill EAS almost since its inception.

Next Week: The federal initiatives and commercial interests that conspire against community air service.